Chips

Chips
Pairing: Not really Spike/Willow, but suggested
Rating: R
Summary: Immediately following the episode 'Something Blue', in which Willow casts the Will Be Done spell that makes Spike and Buffy believe they're engaged. And everything goes all wonky.

DISCLAIMER
None of these characters or settings are mine. I am borrowing them from Joss, and I promise I'll put them back where I found them.

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Spike can’t remember when he’s ever been so bored. He’s chained to Giles’s bathtub again while the stupid Watcher slumbers the night away and snores loudly enough to wake the dead. Not that he needed to wake the dead because Spike wasn’t sleeping to begin with. It was entirely against his nature to sleep at night when he should be out slaughtering virgins or something. He debates banging his feet against the wall until Giles wakes up, but then he’d just have the Watcher to deal with, and that wouldn’t exactly be a cure for boredom.

He doesn’t even realize he’s praying until he hears the door downstairs open and his prayers are answered. Footsteps are coming quietly up the stairs with the faint scent of a someone who can only be Buffy. Spike wonders if she’s come for a repeat of their day-long snogfest and whether he’s actually bored enough to take her up on it if that’s the case. Then the steps get closer and the unmistakable young-cinnamon scent of Willow takes over. Willow in Buffy’s jacket, he guesses, and for a moment he allows himself to appreciate what a lovely combination those two smells make.

Then the bathroom door opens and, surprise, it is Willow in Buffy’s jacket. Buffy’s jacket and an almost toxic-looking fuzzy, green sweater, and pajama pants with some kind of playful puppy pattern on them.

“How is it that you got over here wearing all that without every demon in town seeing you?” Spike says, genuinely interested. “You’re almost blindingly neon.”

“Be quiet, Spike,” Willow shushes, closing the door behind her, which actually is a surprise. She takes off her backpack and puts it on the counter. She looks at him and takes a deep breath before continuing, “I’m sorry, about what happened today.”

“Brought more cookies then, have you?” Spike cranes his head toward the backpack. Willow frowns and shifts her feet like she’s trying not to leave. Instead, she unzips the backpack and takes out a few candles and some kind of stinky weed.

“Oh no, no, no,” Spike protests, voice rising. “No more spells today, thank you. I’ve had enough of you Scoobies fucking about in my head.” He tries to come up with a way to be scary while chained down. He’s not sure that just pulling the game face is enough anymore.

Willow suddenly crouches very close to the tub and looks him straight in the eyes. “Hush,” she hisses. “You’ll wake Giles.” And Spike is so shocked that he obeys. “I’m sorry about what happened today,” Willow says again, and her voice is hard in a way that throws Spike completely off balance. “And I’m willing to try to take the chip out, but if it works you have to leave Sunnydale, Spike, really. You have to leave Sunnydale without hurting anyone, and you can’t ever come back.” And whatever it is that she’s saying, Spike can’t make sense of it. “Huh? What?” he asks.

“I swear, if you hurt anyone, or if you ever come back here, I’ll do something terrible to you. I’ll find a way.” Spike suddenly realizes that he’s facing Willow’s Resolve Face, the one that Xander and Buffy talk about as though it’s more scary than demons. And it kind of is.

“Are you out of your mind?” he asks, incredulous, but she just kneels there. Making the face. “You’re going to take the chip out?”

“Try,” Willow corrects. “I’m willing to try. There’s a spell—”

“Of course it’s a spell,” Spike mutters, but he knows he’s going to do it. And he bets Willow won’t bollocks it up if she feels this guilty about the fiasco today, guilty enough to set him free to feed upon the world. Of course he’s going to do it. And just to be nice, he’ll even leave Sunnydale. “So help me, Red, if I end up snogging Giles,” he threatens, and she cuts him off.

“No more snogging,” she promises. “No more snogging anything.”

Spike hesitates only a moment before agreeing. “It’s a deal. De-chip me.” He sits up in the tub, watching her expectantly.

“I’ll try, but it might not work,” Willow insists. “I’m not sure I have enough power.”

“Right, fine, get with the trying. I’ve read the disclaimer.” Willow shuts her eyes and breathes deeply a second more before scooting back and collecting her candles. She lights them and scatters a little of the weed about, mumbling a chant. “Can we hurry this along?” Spike asks impatiently, but she doesn’t even look at him. Finally she sits cross-legged across from the tub and puts her hands on her knees.

“This might feel weird,” she says apologetically. “Try not to move.” Spike is so anxious that he’s twitching, and he wills himself to stop. And Willow closes her eyes and just sits there. For ages nothing happens.

Expectation slowly fades, replaced with sharp disappointment. Spike settles back against the wall, studying the tile, too despondent to even be bored. He wonders where his cigarettes are and if Willow would get them if he asked. And maybe another cookie, to make up for this latest failed spell. But when he looks at her to ask, the words dry up in his throat.

Willow hasn’t moved, hasn’t changed expression, hasn’t even changed her breathing, but something is happening. Her red hair is turning black very slowly, from roots to tip, the color creeping down each individual strand to infect the ones beneath. And that is very, very wrong.

“Uh, Willow?” Spike asks.

“Quiet,” Willow answers softly, but her voice is off, deeper and echoing in places that it shouldn’t.

“Willow,” he says again, bordering on panicked. Then her eyes snap open, and they’re black, bottomless black. William the Bloody, master vampire, is absolutely terrified.

“I said quiet!” Her hand shoots out and suddenly Spike can’t move, can’t speak and can’t even see, and he’s not sure if the room’s gone dark or if Willow’s turned off his eyes. And being trapped in the pitch blackness with Possessed Willow is even scarier than the military, and he’ll never try to kill her again because if her power is like this then she’s far more dangerous to Buffy if she’s alive.

Insubstantial moth-touches are scrabbling at the edges of his brain, and Spike wants to jerk away even though he knows there’s nothing there. The power around him is heavy, pinning him down, and then dozens of non-corporeal fingers are pushing at his brain and it’s the most unpleasant thing he’s ever experienced.

The sensation becomes stronger and now the fingers are searching, sorting through his brain with combing motions, like they were moving through water. They’re stroking along places where there shouldn’t be nerve endings, but he feels every touch just the same. And the more confident the power gets, the better it feels. The touches are slow, thorough, and every one sets off warmth in some strange place in his body – the inside of his cheek, or through his bicep.

And then she’s tiring, he can feel it, the tiny touches weakening and becoming more tenuous. “Don’t stop, don’t stop,” he tries to say, and it’s a fucking monumental effort but no words come out. Maybe she hears him anyway, because suddenly she’s sucking energy from him, pulling it out in harsh little gasps, and it’s better than if she’d wrapped her lips around his cock. And then the touching is back.

It’s invasive, and in some part of his mind that he can barely access he wonders if he should be scared. Then that part is being stroked with ghost-fingertips somewhere behind his eyes, and it shuts him up completely. The probing becomes harder, a little like being bitten and a little like dying. Spike can feel himself straining toward he doesn’t know what. Just a little harder, and that should hurt, and right there—

It stops completely, contact severed, and Spike immediately comes in his pants. He is barely even aware of it and sits silently, chest curled toward his knees, and the back of his mouth tastes like strawberries. He’s blinded by the harshness of the bathroom light bouncing off the tiles, but he can’t close his eyes to blink. In the corner of his vision he barely registers Willow opening her eyes and shaking herself a little. Her hair is red again, and her expression clear, as though she’d never changed at all.

“Spike?” she says, but he can’t even really hear her, just a slight echo in the bottomless well that has suddenly become his head. “Spike?” she asks again, louder, and he dimly registers the concern in her voice. “Are you alright?” He turns toward her then, attempts to draw an unneeded breath and chokes on it.

She is blinking at him innocently, completely unaffected by what just happened. Not even aware of what just happened. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Uh, no,” he finally manages to say. He hopes she can’t tell how she actually affected him, that she’s not the kind of girl who’d even notice if she looked. Which she wouldn’t, because she’s Willow, but he remembers her eyes going dark and he’s not too certain. He remembers her eyes going dark, and he can’t stop himself from shuddering.

And Willow does notice that, sweet little lamb. “You’re shaking,” she says, frowning a little. She reaches a hand out as though to comfort him, and he stares at her until she draws it back.

“I’m fine,” he says, though not as firmly as he would like to. Her face is puzzled, unconvinced, all her emotions written across it as plain as day. Spike can tell from her expression that he is looking at her strangely, and how could he not, after that? He can’t make it stop, seeing Willow in this different way, so instead he just closes his eyes and tilts his head away from her.

There is a long moment of silence where he’s afraid she isn’t going to accept that, that she’s going to make him talk about it, and won’t that be a total fucking disaster. But she doesn’t, and the silence stretches on until she says, “Okay. Do you think it worked?”

“What?” Spike says, choking on air again. He has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about, but all his guesses make him nervous.

“Do you want to try and bite me?”

“What?” he says again, eyes snapping open. For just a second he’s frozen, wondering where this relationship is going to go, wondering where he wants it to go.

“To see if the chip fires,” Willow says patiently, and then Spike remembers what this whole spell thing was about in the first place. Somehow forgetting the chip is even more embarrassing than the sticky mess in his jeans. He closes his eyes again. “Spike? Do you want to bite me?” Willow insists, moving closer. She’s eager and childlike in her desire to see if her spell worked.

“Sure,” Spike says tiredly, though he’s never in his unlife felt less like biting anyone. He just wants to have a fag and pass out in this bathtub and never wake up. And to angle himself toward the tap enough to rinse his pants.

Willow ignores his lack of enthusiasm, balances on the edge of the tub and cranes her neck down toward him. He leans up and she pulls back, her face inches from his. “If you kill me, you’ll still be chained in this bathtub, and you’ll have Giles and all the others to deal with,” she warns, but it’s more like teasing and she almost smiles. It’s nearly impossible to summon up his game face, but Spike finally manages and Willow leans in closer and he opens his mouth to her pale throat.

His fangs barely sink in before the chip goes off, electric sparks skidding along a brain that is somehow more sensitive. Spike jerks his mouth back, smacks his head hard against the tile of the wall. When he can open his eyes again he’s fully irritated with Willow and she notices, and it’s familiar and normal and he’s almost thankful at the pain ruining his afterglow.

“It didn’t work,” Willow states simply, and she’s disappointed but not really surprised.

“How’d you guess?” Spike snaps, and he has to stop himself from snapping at her more simply because he can again. She was, after all, just trying to help.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and Spike is touched.

“Thank you for trying.” His voice is too soft and there’s that weird thing between them again, and Willow just turns and leaves without collecting her spell tools or Buffy’s jacket. He watches her green sweater until the door closes behind her, and then he stares at the door until he hears her leave the house. Then he rests his head against the wall and tells himself that he doesn’t really want her to come back.

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